Articles

In the last week I have been contacted by several people who are interested in volunteering to help support those in their local area. This is fantastic and shows the real community spirit we have in Leicester.

In my Leicester Mercury column this month, I talk about Leicester’s new Space Park – which will bring together the University of Leicester’s world leading space science and research with industry to seize the potential of this sector and create more than 3,000 high skill, high value jobs.

For the Space Park to reach the next stage of development, it requires around £30m of Government funding.

Investing this money could make a real difference here in Leicester and across the East Midlands. That is why I will be pressing the Chancellor to back our Space Park in the upcoming budget and Government Spending Review.

It is appalling that there are now 43,000 nursing vacancies in England. In Leicester, the nurse vacancy rate has increased from 10.8% in July 2017 to 13.6% in July 2019, which is higher than the national average.

The Royal College of Nursing says applications for nursing courses have plummeted by a third since the Tories scrapped the student nurse bursary and that the failure to recruit enough nurses is putting patient care at risk.

In order to fix the damage done by the Tories, Labour will bring back the NHS student nurse bursary. We will also deliver an extra 4,800 health visitors and school nurses, and legislate for safe staffing levels across the NHS.